The first time reading through this, I was curious to read all the footnotes (regardless of reading Kevin’s blog just before hand) because I found them interesting in themselves, and at times useful. Let’s just say that I’m really grateful for my English lit 12 class. However, I was considerably confused at some of Eliot’s transitions and connections; he appeared to flit about suddenly and randomly at times, leaving me still questioning the previous section but there was no answer. But I suppose that is poetry for T.S. Eliot.

After the second time reading this though, I enjoyed the feeling of Eliot creating circles of connections in each segment of the poem. There is the overarching theme of showing a barren emotional wasteland in a city that is portrayed as being magnificent. England and London are usually portrayed in two lights: the established, dignified and what-is-thought-to-bring-you-happiness (wealth, security, companionship), and then the poor, dirty, primitive, “slums” of British society.  I find connecting strangers through their individual stories that all share a common aspect intriguing. Here, I read the poem as connecting all of the different stories, books, plays, etc. that Eliot was alluding to, along with stories that were existing in the everyday life around him. I did find it interesting that a fair amount of the poem was centered around the everyday objects found in both elements of British society, along with women. While he takes time and words to describe innate objects such as a chair “held up by standards”(line 79), he shows intimate moments of women’s lives in brief but descriptive depictions. Why is this important? I don’t know, but it is interesting to see the woman who is “hardly aware of her departed lover; allows one half-formed thought to pass: “Well now that’s done: and I’m glad it’s over.” (lines 251-2) Here a circle is formed: she is stuck in winter. Winter being a place where things can be forgotten and left behind; a mentality that allows for people to be in a situation they don’t want to be in, and survive.  Neither her, nor the “lover”, nor the society that Eliot sees around him, is really living if they are in a place of forgetting what happened in the past, along with everyday life.

So, those are some thoughts from before the seminar today. Can’t say that I really see humor in this poem just yet, but thanks for a new idea of how to look at this, Jon.

Honestly this poem was extremely frustrating to read, and I’m sure others in our class agree. I found it interesting that he included allusions from many other sources in order to create something very new and personal, but at the same time the story itself jumped around from narrator to narrator and location to location, making it difficult to follow. After reading each section for the first time, I felt confused and lost. But after reading the sections again I was able to grasp the ideas a little bit better. I look forward to the seminar tonight as well as the discussion on Thursday in order to hear everyone’s thoughts on the poem.

I truly love rap and hip hop music, and I consider (certain) rappers to be incredibly talented poets. The best rappers are able to evoke emotions from their listeners, and share their personal stories, generally within a concise 16 bar per verse structure. And the truly great rappers are able to do all of this while demonstrating a smooth flow, matching their rhymes to fit the pockets of the beat that they are rhyming over, and setting themselves apart from the other rappers out there by having their own personal style and cadence. I love this type of musical poetry with a passion, but unfortunately I don’t feel the same way about poetry in general. I enjoy the artistic and creative aspect of it, but compared to poems that are laid over musical backgrounds, it just doesn’t compare to me.

I didn’t enjoy this poem very much because I felt like it was too difficult to relate to in any way, and I will continue to stick to the likes of The Notorious B.I.G. and Kendrick Lamar when I’m in need of a poetry fix.

This poem confused the Hell out of me when I first read it. The dark depressing imagery had no real rhyme or reason to it, and I found myself floating in a real sea of sad confusion. However, I went back and re-read it, as well as the introduction, Eliot’s notes, and many of the notes on context, and I truly was fascinated by it! The poem paints the dreary picture of life as we know it, and reading it within the context intended truly enlightened me and made me feel so scholarly and intelligent that I actually comprehended what was happening, to an extent. I was still confused at many points, but far less than I was during the first reading.

Perhaps the segment that I loved the most was in “The Fire Sermon.” The connection that Eliot makes to Buddha through this passage really gives one a lot to think about. “The Fire Sermon” discusses humanity’s need to give up earthly pleasures, to turn towards the spiritual. This is seen through this section, where at the beginning, we meet this image of the Earth, rotting, decrepit, and revolting, just as earthly pleasures may rot the soul. However, it ends with religious chants and phrases, symbolizing this turning from Earth to the divine. I suppose that maybe Eliot is trying to urge us to fall from this waste land of ours to turn towards the more idylic spiritual life.

In this passage, Eliot mentions Tiresias as well. At first, I was assuming that he simply meant something regarding Tiresias’ sight, according with the idea of spiritual versus Earthly pleasures. However, I read Eliot’s notes, and he states that Tiresias was actually one of, if not the most, central figures in the entire poem. I read the context, and I learned of Tiresias being forced to live seven years as a woman as a form of punishment. Apparently, Tiresias is supposed to symbol a universal joining of males and females, young and old, and intended to serve as sort of a universal representation of humanity. This fits well into the rest of the imagery of the poem, and I really appreciated that Tiresias serves more as a representation of the human, regardless of gender, forced to live in this waste land.

I know this is kind of a rant about reading context, but holy, I never thought that I would learn so much from a few extra pages of reading.

Unlike the blogger who said that he was pissed at buying a book he wouldn’t even read a quarter off, I wasn’t “pissed” at all. It’s one more book for me to add to my home library. I love it when someone comes, glances admiringly at all my books and comments on how well-read I must be. To be fair though, I have read most of the books that I own!

Anyway, while “The Waste Land” isn’t as hard to read as Nietzsche’s “On the Genealogy of Morals,” I had a hard time with it at first. It seemed like a poem that had no meaning (which, I know, is far from the truth). I read the poem for its imagery, and it did paint a “waste land.” It’s one of those depressing poems which you read, your head gets filled with sad imagery, and you have no idea what it’s about. That’s what happened to me the first time I read it. Hopefully the evening lecture will enlighten me! To get the full poem, I think we’d have to read the works the poem alludes to. But quite honestly, who has the time for that?

This is probably the shortest blog post I have ever written to date, but that’s because I didn’t fully grasp the poem. I’m going to wait and see how the magnificent Kevin McNeilly can illuminate this poem.

The good thing about being ahead in readings is that when confusion arises as to which text is supposed to read next week and which text after, you don’t care because you’ve already read both. Ha.

Anyway, I was rather surprised when I opened The Waste Land to find 20 pages of poem and 276 pages of other stuff that was not the poem. Was I a bit pissed at buying a book that I haven’t read nor intend to read a quarter of? Yes. Do I understand why they told us to buy this version? Yes. This poem is heavily layered with references to the point that you’d need a small library of books just to know where they all came from, and to those who like to go on wild goose chases (Eliot’s words, not mine) for deep inter-literary symbolism, this much is necessary. In my opinion, however, this is not necessary. What Eliot calls “incidental symbolism” is exactly that—incidental symbolism. You do not need to get the references in order to understand and interpret the poem. In fact, one might say that being too caught-up in the references will result in said references burying the point (and probably your sanity in the process). I have not read most of the texts that Eliot cites from; however, I have my own interpretation of the world Eliot has built in this poem. It is not disconnected. It is not nonsensical. It is a strongly coherent and masterfully woven allegory of human nature—whatever that nature may be. Honestly, I do not yet have a full grasp on the poem (having only read it about five times), but I know that a vision is there. Not a very reassuring vision, per say, but a vision nonetheless.

So…two hundred words to go. Okay. Originally, I was planning to just post a bunch of notes I wrote for this poem rather than a proper blog, but after looking them over and seeing how confusing they would be to anyone but me (because I wrote them, not because they’re particularly complex), I decided to save everyone the headache. Instead of that, then, I will give some tips on how to read this poem coherently without having to read a small library worth of texts beforehand:

1. Focus on the imagery. Imagine you’re watching an experimental movie or something and enjoy the pretty pictures. Ignore all that symbolism and allusion jargon until you feel you’re ready for it.
2. Take note of repeated words. There are a lot—a LOT—of key terms that show up throughout the poem, giving you hints as to where the connections are. My personal favourite is the transition from the repetition of “rat” to the use of “bat”; the word “wing” also shows up in-between, as if Eliot actually wants to make it easy for you.
3. Keep lines 1-18 in mind as you read. I am a strong believer in making a poem’s first few lines reflect the overall theme, and I believe Eliot utilizes that technique here. The not necessarily linear changing of seasons is a very interesting thing to keep note of as you read.

Have fun~

Wowza.

For me, this piece of literature was fantastic. A big theme that is consistent in this is the duality of human nature, but I confer it is even simpler – that being, duality in general, plays a big part in this novel. One of the example of this is just seeing how much we truly know about the text. We aren’t given another perspective of the whole chain of events leading to Jekyll/Hyde’s death other than Utterson’s, until the very last chapter, which is solely Jekyll’s written work. Another aspect of duality can be seen through the descriptions of the weather; The continuous occurrence of unpleasant natural elements (fog, “black winter”, coldness) throughout the book hints at the obscure secret that will become clear at the end of the novel, underlining Dr Jekyll’s psychological and spiritual loss. These weather elements show signs of duality – condensation and evaporation. In fact, most of the objects in general do – the cheval glass is a pretty good example, as it shows another side of view to one’s eyes by looking into it.

Other than that persisting theme, a few comments on the writing style – I didn’t quite understand why the chapter were split up how they were. I realize the book is short, but some chapters (like the final one) will have narrative over many events, while others will be simply desolated as chapters on the sole purpose that they contain somebody reacting to a note, or a small crisis otherwise. I did enjoy the different narrative perspectives though. Specifically  Jekyll and his statement of the case at the end because it runs in such a fast pace and successfully combines Jekyll’s thoughts leading up to particular moments we already saw while explaining earlier unanswered questions. I’d like to think of it as more of an epilogue than a concluding chapter.

Overall there are a ton of things to discuss about this story, which is quite remarkable for the short length. I will be reading this story again in my near future, that’s all I know.

Prior to reading Freud, I had no knowledge of him. Maybe that’s my fault for not being quite familiar with him or his writing styles, or his beliefs and what not.. but I didn’t know anything about him really. With that being said, I did however, find that his writing style wasn’t too difficult to read through. That he did bring up quite a few intriguing and interesting spins of particular topics. To be brutally honest here… I definitely expected some wordy, fancy, and elaborate essay of some sort, and the fact that this piece of writing actually appeared to be normal—made reading Freud less daunting.

In my opinion, Civilization and its Discontents was in my opinion, a pretty good read. I feel like I didn’t really “jive” well with the other philosophical texts that we have read thus far, (Arts One made me rethink my desire to potentially major in Philosophy…) but this one wasn’t too bad for me to handle. I found that one most predominant concept here in Freud’s essay, is repression to one’s self.  I found his opinions though perhaps a bit flawed or open to interpretation, were captivating to learn of.

“The whole thing is so patently infantile, so foreign to reality, that to anyone with a friendly attitude to humanity it is painful to think that the great majority of mortals will never be able to rise above this view of life.”

In more depth, I found the way in which he described religion to be particularly fascinating to me. Having come from an immensely religious family, full of devote Catholics, and having gone to a Catholic school my entire life.. Freud’s views on the subject of religion, and its impact and importance to people immediately struck my interest.  Freud touches on the idea that religion, and the way we rely on it for different things—be it to blame when things do not go our way, or as something to hold onto and believe in; to confide in. In spite of coming from, as I said, a pretty religious family… my  brothers and I didn’t really adopt that same devoutness I guess you could say. We are religious, but not nearly to the same extent that my mom and my relatives are. Essentially what I’m saying, is that I am not practicing. However, (there’s a point to this.. I swear!) when Freud discusses religion, it hits home. A religion is there to have belief in something, as a means of comfort… when times get a bit difficult, one’s religion is their rock; their shelter. However, Freud states that religion, and belief in God, or a different religious figure as a mere fault of humanity; which is what screws us up as individuals. I don’t really take what philosophers say to heart, but all in all, I did find his arguments overall (in spite of their flaws) to be pretty solid.

After a great seminar with the RealMcNeilley, I was informed that for the second time this week I had read the wrong text. Daisy Dolls and Metamorphosis are still fresh in my mind yet T.S. Eliots’ Wasteland still demands to be read, to which I respond: “No”.  It would be nothing short of a miracle if I could finish another text with the onslaught of work I still have ahead of me. So if you’re reading this thinking “There is no point in him writing this…”, I will counter your argument with the timeless rhetoric of “YOLO”.

Let me start by saying that either this novella or Frankenstein is my favorite text of the year. My reasoning behind it isn’t for love of allegory or symbolism and descriptive language. No, it is simply because both stories elicited a strong emotional response.  Man tears were not shed this time, but I did immediately toss the book from my bed in frustration (Spoilers, I did not dent my wall, that would be childish). Kafka’s absurd tale makes the reader feel tormented and persecuted through narration from Gregor’s mind. As Gregor, we experience his pain, frustration, but worse of all we feel undeserved self-guilt (callback to Freud). In my last essay I argued that Victor Frankenstein was one of the most human, yet most monstrous characters we’ve read, but that title now belongs to The Samsa Family. Let me briefly explain why, and also explain how they beat out a woman who boils a cat.

One of my favorite quotes (I have no idea, nor a desire, to recall who said it to me) goes something like this “If you kick around a dog long enough, it’ll eventually begin to ask itself what it did wrong.” That expression is Gregor Samsa in a nutshell. The young man feels so much love and compassion for a family that demonstrates so little gratitude, and next to no sympathy in return. He is willing to be the breadwinner and sole benefactor for his family (despite his own self-interests), who reciprocate this by turning their backs on him when he needs them most. The ending of the novella completely defies any kind of structure or expectation of a story arc. There is no dignified resolution for Gregor. His family becomes the unworthy inheritor of his due resolve.

The text is not the most bizarre novella I’ve read (That award goes to Daisy Dolls), but it is the most emotionally complex and confusing. It defies any form of human compassion, and that’s what really irritated me the most. Where’s the love, or the Eros? Who the hell are these people? No, what are they? Some would argue that art should not be valued by the emotional response it evokes. Many advocates of surrealism would say it is a cheap ploy, but screw em’. Some would also argue an important and vital factor of art is provocation, and this story certainly left a lasting emotional resonance. I thankfully doubt that this resonance will disperse before our Seminar on it (It’s 3 weeks away). Hopefully my title was provocative enough to make you give enough of a damn to read this long rant, and you don’t feel any resentment for my embellishment. If you do, good. I know that feel, bro.

So yeah, if any wants to talk about Kafka Tuesday I’m your guy.